


numbers

by annoyingplant



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Canon Compliant, Established Relationship, Light Angst, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Pining, Post-Canon, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-12
Updated: 2018-12-12
Packaged: 2019-09-16 15:33:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16956678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annoyingplant/pseuds/annoyingplant
Summary: kei is on a late night video call with kuroo-san. they miss each other.





	numbers

**Author's Note:**

> my muse broke into my house and dragged me to my desk at 1am to write this. unbeta'ed for now
> 
> this is set around february in kei's third year of high school, they've been dating since sometime during first year
> 
> kuroo is a struggling med student who lives in a shitty apartment and works a shitty part-time job

a long distance relationship, kei has learned, is hard. he can count the times he’s seen kuroo-san since they started dating on two hands- no, actually, three, just barely, but that doesn’t sound as good.

three hands for eleven times, since kei visited over winter break a month back or so. miyagi to tokyo, or vice-versa, is far. three hundred and five kilometers. one hundred and eighty-nine miles. two hours and four minutes on the shinkansen. about nine-thousand yen, eighteen-thousand for a round trip. 

kei gets five-thousand yen a month for allowance, so he’d have to save up for four months for the trip. a quarter of a year.

kuroo-san, on the other hand, doesn’t have a lot of money left over after rent and food, even though he’s picked up a part time job. he doesn’t earn much, and in the end he has even less time to see kei.

 

a long distance relationship, kei has learned, two years or so into dating kuroo-san all the way over in tokyo, is hard. a long distance relationship is math and numbers and planning and no dates, no going to the movies after school and no going to the arcade together. no kissing.

 

kei has exactly sixteen-thousand two hundred and seven yen saved up right now. in a bit over a month he will go see kuroo-san. and further past that kei will graduate. even further past that he will move to tokyo.

he’s already been accepted to a good university there. tuition is expensive, way more than taking the shinkansen every couple months, but his parents don’t have a savings account for kei going to see his college boyfriend every couple months either.

 

kei counts on his fingers the times he will see kuroo-san before he moves to tokyo. 

one; in a month when he goes to see him on his own. kei will leave friday evening and spend two nights at kuroo-san’s place, then take the shinkansen back home sunday afternoon. 

two; in a bit over a month when his parents take him to find an apartment in tokyo. he will stay at a hotel with them and kuroo-san will show him around campus the second day he’s there.

 

three; april, when kei packs his things and moves into a cramped apartment near his university and kuroo-san comes to help him unpack. they’ll eat food from the convenience store around the corner and watch tv and not unpack at all.

 

the area kei’s parents are considering looking for an apartment in is known to house a lot of students, young people living on their own for the first time, so they feel it’s safe enough for their beloved baby son to live in alone. if kei moves into an apartment there, he will be a seventeen minute walk away from kuroo-san’s place at most.

 

two hours and four minutes, one hundred and twenty four minutes.

 

seventeen.

 

eight-thousand yen.

 

zero.

 

kei makes a round, misformed zero with his thumb and middle finger and looks through it at the wall of his room. he probably doesn’t have enough fingers to form eight-thousand.

 

_           “--at are you doing?”  _ kuroo-san says with a chuckle.

 

kei shifts to lay on his stomach and look at his phone. he’s not particularly fond of video chatting, never has been. the camera always captures his least flattering angles. but he likes seeing kuroo-san’s face and he thinks kuroo-san feels the same way, probably.

“what?” kei adjusts his phone a little and fiddles with how his earphones are plugged in. “you’re lagging a bit.”

 

_ “i asked what you were doing,” _ kuroo-san repeats, face resting in his hands.  _ “you were staring into the distance super spaced out.” _

 

“i was thinking about you.”

 

_ “but i’m right here?” _

(no, you’re not.)

 

“i thought you were going to study. something about wanting my company but not being able to chat much,” kei says, head tilting as he recalls how kuroo-san had put it. he said he missed kei, but he was too swamped with catching up with his studies to talk. not like kei himself is any better.

 

_ “don’t just change the topic like that, c’mon.”  _ the video freezes on kuroo-san forming that last syllable, leaving him looking stupid.  _ “i just finished and wanted to see how my cute darling tsukki is doing.” _ kei takes a screenshot.

 

“your cute darling tsukki,” kei says through his teeth, making a face, “is thinking about how much money he’s going to save once he’s settled in tokyo.”

 

_ “you know you sound like a total country bumpkin when you say you’re going to  _ save  _ money in  _ tokyo _ , right?” _

 

“well, i won’t have to spend  _ thousands _ upon thousands on visiting a certain someone anymore,” kei rolls his eyes and exaggerates with a smile he can’t quite hold back.

 

_ “ugh. you mak--t sound so much like an accusation when you say it like that.”  _ the video unfreezes. only half of kuroo-san is actually on screen, he seems to have gotten up and is arranging his desk. kei makes a face when the audio starts lagging. 

kuroo-san settles back down, looking apologetic.  _ “...you know --m sorry for not c--ing to visit you, right?” _

 

“yeah.” 

 

_ “i’ve --st been short --oney these past few months, and-and now i h--ve exams, so…”  _ kuroo-san trails off, looking down. he’s gathered the textbooks that were strewn around his desk, on top of the pile “ethics for clinical research”.

kei remembers late nights on video chat with kuroo-san while he studied, not talking but still being there for each other. remembers kuroo-san reading a chapter from that book to him when he started falling asleep on his desk.

 

“..it’s not your fault,” kei says, quietly, after a short silence. “i’ve been busy too.”

 

_ “--know. and--”  _ kei can’t tell if kuroo-san paused or if the audio cut off again.  _ “and it’s --t your fault either! once apr-- rolls around we--”  _ a long, long silence. this time, kei is sure the audio cut off. he frowns.

 

he taps his phone. “kuroo-san?”

 

_ “--ei? kei?” _

 

“welcome back,” kei says gripping his phone a little tighter.

 

_ “sorry,” _ kuroo-san laughs and fiddles with his sleeves.  _ “they’re doing some construction work down the street. my connection’s been bad all day.” _

 

“oh.” kei counts his breaths for a second. he can tell kuroo-san is counting too. “that’s good, though? more opportunity for you to get ready for exams, less for you to watch scrubs again.”

 

_ “kei, you say that like scrubs is bad,”  _ kuroo-san jokes, but smiles in a ‘i’ll cut it out if you tell me to’ way.

kei doesn’t like how easily he can tell when kei’s upset.

 

“you’re the one who chose a field this competitive,” kei says, chin resting on the palm of his hand.

he doesn’t like that he’s upset right now, there’s no reason for him to be. it’s just a bad internet connection, they’ve dealt with far worse. there’s just a little tug in his chest whenever he can’t quite make out kuroo-san’s words, a little salt in his wounds.

kei swallows thickly, and offers, “want me to quiz you again?”

 

_ “mhm,” _ kuroo-san shakes his head and proudly declares,  _ “i’m all done with memorization today! just have to do a little reading and i’ll be finished for the week.” _

 

“a little reading? like the last time you had to do a little reading of one hundred and fifty-three pages when i was over and made me stay up with you until you were done--”

 

_ “sorry, kei--” _

 

“sorry.” kei pulls his blanket up further and buries his face in his hands. “sorry, i didn’t mean that.”

 

_ “sorry,” _ kuroo-san says again, despite it.  _ “i know you’ve been feeling crappy. i thou-- i’d try to cheer you up a bit and…” _

he looks lost for words, for a minute. a rare sight. kei peeks through his fingers and watches kuroo-san frown.  _ “i get it, if you’re mad at me.” _

 

“i’m not mad at you,” kei says, the words out of his mouth before his brain can catch up. he’s mad at himself.

kei lowers his hands, even though he doesn’t really want to, even though his lashes are damp and he takes a couple deep breaths. “i just miss you,” he confesses, chest squeezing a little tighter, like someone has a firm grip on his lungs. “a lot.”

 

a moment passes. then another. “kuroo-san?” there’s no answer and kei feels his heart sink, a pit in his stomach. he takes his phone, brows pulling together as he watches kuroo-san on the other end, frowning and typing on his keyboard. no audio. 

 

“kuroo?”

 

_ “oh! you’re back.” _

(i never left.)

“ah.”

 

_ “sorry, what did you say?”  _ kuroo-san is smiling even though kei feels like doing the very opposite right now.  _ “you cut out, i didn’t get any of that.” _

 

“nothing,” kei lies, very obviously from the look on kuroo-san’s face. “it wasn’t that important,” he tries again, a little slower this time, voice a little less shaky.

 

_ “kei, i--” _

 

“i’m going to sleep, okay? i’ll call you again tomorrow.”

 

kei hangs up before kuroo-san gets the chance to say anything else.

he grips his phone so tight it hurts, so tight his knuckles turn white, so tight he thinks he might break it. part of him wants to chuck it at the floor, break it to pieces, but a phone is expensive and kei can’t afford another expensive thing right now.

 

eighteen thousand yen.

 

kei takes a deep, shaky breath and wills the tears away, ignores the pain in his chest and the thoughts about how upset kuroo-san must be right now. he counts the days until he gets to see him again on his fingers, but he doesn’t have nearly enough.

between twenty-three and twenty-four his phone starts ringing and kei knows why and kei knows who but he doesn’t pick up and keeps counting.

 

so many days until he gets to board the shinkansen to see kuroo-san again. so many days before they can go out, before kei gets to hold his hand, before they can kiss, before kei gets to fall asleep with a warm heavy weight against his back in a bed that’s not his own but feels so familiar after all.

so many days to patch things back up.

 

so many days and two hours and four minutes.

 

tomorrow. 

tomorrow kei will call kuroo-san and they will talk about today. and kei will tell him that sometimes he misses him so much it hurts. 

kei and kuroo-san have called twenty-one times these last two weeks, but even that isn’t enough. it’s not the heft of kuroo-san’s palm against his own, the press of their lips. 

kei will tell him that sometimes he misses him so much he feels like he couldn’t possibly wait the two hours and four minutes it takes him just to get there. like he couldn’t possibly wait for kuroo-san to pick up when they call.

 

a long distance relationship, kei has learned, is incredibly, unbearably hard. it’s planning and it’s math and it’s connectivity issues and sometimes it’s pain.

in a couple months, kei will move to tokyo. seventeen minutes away from kuroo-san. he counts to seventeen silently and imagines that’s how long it would be until he could be with him again. in a couple months, they won’t have to deal with this and in a couple months they won’t be long distance anymore.

 

kei counts the days on his fingers and they seem endless.

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> my browser history is exclusively info about japanese university and school systems, i get suggested plane tickets from tokyo to miyagi


End file.
